Last night, we had a Shabbabaque at Temple (“Shabbat” + “Barbeque”). There was a bunch of food leftover, and so I brought some home — the sliced tomatoes and roasted zucchini — and threw it into a crockpot. That’s a great thing to do with leftovers: make a stew (and I intend to suggest formalizing that next year*). Just like at the Shabbabaque, I’ve got loads of leftovers — onsies and twosies of news articles — that don’t make a coherent dish. Perhaps they’ll make a good stew. What do you think?

Ga-Ga. One more camp related article: If you’ve been to a Jewish summer camp, you’ve likely seeing that an octagonal court and an odd game of dodgeball called ga-ga. Ever wonder where it came from? Hint: It wasn’t Israel.

The Music Center. Supposedly being reinvented is the plaza at the Music Center. Spend 30 million, and let’s see if you can make this hulk of concrete friendly. I’ll believe it when I see it. The structure is massive and above ground due to the parking, and that may just be an incurable.

Right Hand Over Your Heart. Did you ever wonder why we put our hands over our heart for the national anthem and the pledge? Or why we have the pledge in the first place? Wonder no more. Hint: The former is so that we don’t look like Nazis, and the latter is to unify a nation of immigrants.

Steve Julian. Steve Julian passed away this week, after a short but intense battle with brain cancer. I never met the man, but I listened to him on KPCC and saw his work in and on behalf of the LA Theatre community. A loss for the community at the young age of 57. 57. That’s one year older than me. This comes on the heels of the death of Hope Joffee Rankell, a middle-school friend who pancreatic cancer got at the same age, and on the heels of the death this week of Rick Wisotsky, a camp counselor of mine and all around good person, again from a brain tumor. It makes one think about one’s mortality when one’s contemporaries pass away. Luckily, all three expressed the same philosophy: embrace life, enjoy life, and love those around you while you can. Something worth remembering.

Dress for Success. Mental Floss has a nice summary of 8 rules for dressing appropriately at work. This article basically takes those terms like “business professional”, “business casual”, and such, and breaks them down into what they really mean. Now if someone can just tell me how to dress to work on formal methods.

Thunderbird. This week I had a set of battles with Firefox, and saw increasing news about Firefox losing market share. Just another step in the continuing transition from Netscape to Mozilla to Seamonkey to Firefox. The week also brought news about how Mozilla is trying to offload Thunderbird, their mail client. Mail clients are a pretty mature market, and with the exception of overlying end-to-end encryption (something I explored in my MS Thesis on the subject back in 1985 — yes, 1985), there’s not much innovation needed. It doesn’t bring income to Mozilla, but I hope they find a good home. I’m still a regular Thunderbird user.

Cabrillo Music Theatre. There’s been a lot of publicity about Cabrillo Music Theatre being saved from death, but there is one piece of news that hasn’t been heavily reported: Lewis Wilkenfield is stepping down as Artistic Director after Little Mermaid. We’ve been there all 10 years with him, and we’ll miss his selections and good work. I hope Cabrillo finds an Artistic Director who can move them to bigger and better things, with large audiences and community support.

Red Car Conspiracy. One of my hobbies is transportation and the Red Cars, so I hear the conspiracy theory about LA Transportation all the time. The problem is: it’s not true. Here’s a great summary of the debunking.

It’s been a couple of weeks since we’ve made some news chum stew, and I’m hungry for a nice heaping bowl. Please join me, and let’s discuss some of these:

Inclusion and Integration. Let’s start with an article I chose just for the graphic, which is appropriate for the Oscars tonight and #OscarsSoWhite . I had seen others use this graphic before with respect to diversity discussions, and I realized that it is also wonderful to explain security system engineering, and how security truly needs to be included in the engineering discussion, not just considered in a separate area.

Food and Health. Here are two articles related to food and health.The first explores how the proton-pump inhibator heartburn meds (such as omeprazole, which I take) may be associated with a higher dementia risk. This is of concern to me; it is why I’m trying to wean down on the meds (I’m at every other day). Specifically, a new study links the widely used PPIs — which include Nexium, Prevacid and Prilosec — to an increased risk for cognitive decline, though researchers caution the study has limitations, and does not show a definite cause. PPIs have recently been linked to kidney disease, heart disease, and deficiencies of B12 and other vitamins. While patients have reported side effects of the drugs, not taking them often results in stomach pains and worse heartburn as the drug leaves their systems.

The second highlights a fascinating finding about pasta: Reheating your pasta makes it healthier for you. When pasta is cooled down, your body digests it differently, causing fewer calories to be absorbed and a smaller blood glucose peak. And reheating it is even better – it reduces the rise in blood glucose levels by a whopping 50 percent.

Kitchens and Shopping. If you’re a cook, you’ve probably gone shopping at those high end kitchen supply stores. Have you gone to a restaurant supply store. It’s quite fun. We’ve gotten a few things there that we use every day. Here’s a good article on what you should be buying at a restaurant supply store. I particularly recommend the cutting board advice: get a really large one you can sit over your sink. You can then rinse and cut without the water going over your counters, and scrape the cuttings right into the disposal. They also have colored boards, so you can segregate vegetable from meat boards.

Names and Processors. A number of years ago, picking a processor was easy. You went for the latest x86 and clock speed. Then came Pentium and Celeron and Atom, and now there are Cores and iX and more. Here’s the first cogent explanation I’ve found of Intel Processor naming. This will be a big help next time I go processor shopping. I wonder how they differ architecture-wise, in particular in memory mapping and privilege rings — things us cybersecurity folks care about.

A, B, C, D, E, and F. If you are old enough, you remember the days before “forever” stamps, when postage changed so frequently they issued lettered stamps worth make up postage between the old rate and the new rate. One wonders if they would issue negative postage stamps now, given that stamp prices are set to go down 2c in April. That’s right. Down. From 49c to 47c. I’d wait to buy that “forever” postage.

Malls and ShoppingTowns . In the news recently was an article noting how the Beverly Center mall near Cedars Sinai is getting a makeover. I remember this area well: I remember when the mall was built in the 1970s (drove by it on the way to WBT). It replaced the beloved Beverly Playland. The redevelopment is part of a trend of mall redesign, where developers take what were indoor malls and make them outdoor strolling areas. Think “the Grove” or “Americana at Brand”. What goes around, comes around, I guess. I remember when this was done at places like Fallbrook; I also remember when outdoor malls were turned into indoor malls (Panorama Mall; Sherman Oaks Fashion Center). They are about to do a similar transformation on the Westside Pavillion (which folks remember used to be a little lovely outdoor shopping center with a Vons and May Company). Should be interesting to watch.

Yesterday was a crazy day, and I didn’t get the news chum stew on the stove. Today is chilly and rainy, so I’ve made an extra big pot:

Two food news items:

Chocolate Helps Coughs. Here are the results of an interesting survey: when it comes to coughs, chocolate calms them down better than codeine. This is from a recent study where patients who took a new medicine containing cocoa (versus cough syrup) saw a significant improvement in their cough within two days. Another study, performed at the Imperial College of London, further explains: There’s an alkaloid in cocoa that is better at suppressing the urge to cough than codeine. Cool.

Not Created Equal. When it comes to calories, it turns out, they are not created equal. Here’s an Ars Technica article on the subject, which is based on a report from one of my favorite podcasts, Gastropod. This is because not all calories are stored the same in the body, nor are they burned the same.

Yiddishkayt and Fiddler: Two interesting articles related to Adam Kantor, currently on Broadway in Fiddler:

Drugs Doctors Won’t Take. Here’s an interesting list of 8 drugs that doctors won’t take. I have taken some of these in the past, such as Advair, and I currently take Omperazole (Prilosec) every other day. I should cut that down. I’d add one to the list: the demon Afrin nose spray, which is incredibly addictive.

This has been a busy week — lots of stuff to do at work combined with a migraine flare (thank you, Santa Ana winds) and a dearth of compelling news items led to no posts during the week. I have a few items backed up, some of which actually theme. The themed ones all have to do with Southern California:

Plant a Radish, Get a Radish. Here’s a really neat article about something the camps did over the summer: they planted camp gardens. What’s more interesting here is what they did with the gardens: they not only grew their own food, but they grew food for charity. It’s nice to see a program like this at camp; it is an extension of the old “Nature” → “Ecology” → “Avodah” programs.

A Bird Flies Away.The iconic Proud Bird restaurant just S of LAX is closing. Proud Bird is one of those old airport-near restaurants that celebrated airplanes and airplane history (think 94th Aero Squadron). There have been many business meetings, retirement parties, and “grey-beard” get-togethers at the Proud Bird. It will be sad to see it go.

Aluminum City. Here’s an interesting article that links to a longer story on the history of Century City. It’s a story of a silver screen cowboy, a studio desiring to monetize its historic back lot, a lot of aluminum, and the development of a modern office park and shopping center.

Summer camp, for those of you that have experienced it, is often a life-changing experience. It is so pivotal for some children that Ira Glass has mused on it for This American Life. It certainly was for me — it defined my relationship to Judaism for me much more than any synagogue; it shaped my character and my concern about people; it led me to be the type of person that just jumps in and does what needs to be done. Camp was “just do it” long before there was a Nike.

In my case, the camps were the Wilshire Blvd Temple Camps: Camp Hess Kramer (FB) and Gindling Hilltop Camp (FB). I started attending CHK in 1969, and added GHC in 1971, and continued at both camps until 1979. I tended to prefer GHC — it was the smaller camp, it was more informal, it was more individualistic. In those early years (Hilltop started in 1968, vs. Kramer’s 1952 start), Hilltop had that “pioneer” nature — you were not only at camp, you were making camp and establishing tradition. Studies have shown that Jewish summer camps such as these (and there are many many such camps) are much more effective in keeping kids Jewish than any religious school can ever be.

A side effect of this is that whenever there is a chance for me to get to camp (at least one that I can afford), I go. This can be various alumni events at camp that have happened over the years; more recently, it has been the alumni shabbat events that are offered. On these Shabbat, a small number of alumni have the opportunity to go up to camp to join the session in progress for Shabbat. I’ve been going every year since they started in 2006 (you can read about all my camp posts here). This year comes on the heels of what could have been a disastrous fire: the Springs fire in May came one canyon away from camp. Luckily, camp survived and (according to Andrea, the director), they only evidence of the fire is at Sycamore Canyon where they go on beach day, and what is seen on hikes.

One reason camp is special is that it is one of the few places I feel spiritual. Normally, I have a more distanced relationship to Judaism. I love the traditions and the history, but a connection to G-d? Can you feel that in the concrete, marble, and steel chambers that most congregations erect? But at camp, it is totally different. When you are sitting out at the top of a hill in Malibu, it is impossible not to feel the connection. The view above of the ark should give you one example; just below is another view of the menorah on the hill at Hilltop.

During the service, the fellow leading the service (I didn’t get his name) had some interesting observations. He noted that things have changed over the years — using the Birkat (prayer at the end of the meal), it has grown longer from just the last sentence to the much longer version they use today. Yet with all the change, things have stayed the same. The sprituality, the connection, the magic that the place conveys remains. The “safe”-ness that camp brings is still there, even over 40 years after my first visits. This was reemphasized during closing: the stars are the same, the sunsets are still beautiful (see the picture below). These don’t change.

But some things do change. Last night I found myself noting some of the changes as I stood back a bit and watched:

I was struck by the growing diversity of the camp community. When I attended camp, for lack of a better word, it was mono-color (and often, mono-cultured). You had the white middle-to-upper income Jewish children. This year, I was pleased to see the spectrum was changing, with children from a greater spectrum of ethnicities. This is a good thing; it reflects how society is melting together, as well as the fact that although Judaism is a religion and a culture, it is nether a race nor an ethnicity.

Did I ever have that much energy? I was watching the campers and the counselors during the song sessions, dancing, and throughout the evening. Running, jumping, being completely open and out there. I don’t remember being that way — I have this image of me as the quiet kid off to the side. If I was that way, where did the energy go? Is this something being an adult saps away?

During the song session, they did the 59th Street Bridge Song, otherwise known as “Feeling Groovy”. I was struck by the realization that most of the kids probably have no idea who Simon and Garfunkel were.

My step is still there, but not for long. I heard rumors that they may finally start work on rehabbing the ampitheatre (I think they call it the teatron (תאטרון) now). This is good — the concrete steps are starting to break apart, and the stage has seen much better days.

I was surprised to see that Cabin 12 was empty this session. Evidently, they didn’t have enough boy campers. I have no idea whether this is a reflecting on camp declining in popularity, shifts in the ratio of boys to girls in Jewish youth, or a reflection of the cost of camp. I remember that when Erin went to camp, they had an excess of girls. I have a vague recollection of them having so many girls they had to coopt staff cabins for girl campers.

I noticed much more how Hilltop is blending into the background of the hills. In the past, driving up Pacific Coast Highway, as one crossed the Ventura County line, one would see the pavilion at the top of the mountain. Nowadays, it blends in so well and the trees have grown so much that you don’t notice it. Instead you notice the Menorah at both camps.

I looked for any evidence of the Springs fire, even going so far as to drive up Yerba Buena Road for a mile or two. I didn’t see anything, although I might have seen more had I gone as far as Boney Ridge. As I noted earlier, there evidently is evidence of the fire over in Sycamore Canyon. Yet again the camp lucked out with respect to the local brush fires — there seems to be something special protecting that place.

Although we’ve been in Las Vegas today, it’s been a down day after all the museums yesterday. More importantly, since last night, my thoughts have been elsewhere — they’ve been at camp. You see, the Wilshire Blvd Temple Camps are just N of the county line off PCH. Specifically, they are at PCH and Yerba Buena Road, which is where the fire was heading last night. So I’ve been monitoring the Camp’s Facebook page and the twitter feed about the fire to find out what was happening at camp. It’s gotten close; the campers there were evacuated last night, and there was real risk had the fire continued S from Deer Creek Road. It was certainly burning further E near Boney Ridge and Circle X. Right now, it looks to have continued N into Hidden Valley. As for camp, according to the Jewish Journal:

The flames did not reach the 200-acre property shared by Camp Hess Kramer and Gindling Hilltop Camp in Little Sycamore Canyon, situated between the Santa Monica Mountains and the Pacific Ocean. The blaze reached land adjacent to the property, on the other side of a ridge in the Santa Monica Mountains, according to Howard Kaplan, executive director of WBT, which owns and operates the camps.

No camp property was damaged, and the flames nearby were put out by Ventura County Fire Department firefighters, Kaplan said.

“Right now we’re fine, but we’re on standby because we have to be,” Kaplan told the Journal on Friday afternoon.

As long as this fire is burning, the camps are in danger, so keep thinking those good thoughts, folks.

Today, I went to a very special birthday party: a 60th birthday party for the Wilshire Blvd Temple Camps. This was a day where campers from the first year of camp (back in 1952) were invited back to Malibu to celebrate 60 years of Jewish camping on the coast. I had a blast; the day wasn’t long enough to do all I wanted to do and to take the time to see everyone I could have seen.

So let’s recap a bit what this was about, why this was special, what today was, what I saw, and what the future holds.

I’ve written about camp before, so as you might guess, this is an important place to me. The Wilshire Blvd Temple Camps — Camp Hess Kramer and Gindling Hilltop Camp — were started in 1952 and moved to Malibu in 1954 (if memory serves correct). They serve Jewish youth from about 4th grade to high school, with opportunities for older high school and college folks through staff positions. Over the years, they have touched thousands and thousands of young people, instilling in them a sense of connection to the Jewish community, and for many, a need to do service for the community at large through leadership positions, teaching, or just being good people who do good.

I attended the camps starting in 1969 and continued through 1979. I was both a camper and a counselor, but never in a “leadership” session (in my day, those were only at CHK), nor did I do a year as a CIT (counselor in training). I made a number of friends over those years — perhaps not folks I see regularly, but folks that when I do see them there is an instant bond, a hug, and a friendship where we know we would be there for each other. This is what camp does when you get to know people.

I got to see a number of folks like that today — folks who were fellow campers with me, folks that were my counselors, folks that were camp leaders. When I saw these folks, the years melted away. I didn’t seem them as “old” — I saw them as my counselors and friends, and teens and young adults they were in my memory. Last week I wrote about “Follies”, and how there were younger dancers echoing the people on stage. I think that’s how camp was: we didn’t see ourselves as the adults of today at camp; when we visit camp we are eternally young. This is one reason why this place is so special.

So you have memories combined with great people. For example, the picture at the right shows three generations of camp directors of Gindling Hilltop: from the far right to left: Steve Makoff, Andrea Cohen (the current director), and Chuck Feldman. I was at Hilltop during the years with both Steve and Chuck (and I see Andrea every Alumni Shabbat), and I don’t think I’ve seen either of them for years. It was great to reconnect with them — I got to see and talk to people that I haven’t seen in real life in ages (although, for some, I talk to them regularly on Facebook). This is just one thing that made today special.

I didn’t get to spend that much time at Hess Kramer, alas. Shortly after I got there, I had lunch and took the bus up to Hilltop, where I spent most of the midday. I did get to check on my step. which I last reported on in 2009. As background, I was running the arts and crafts group that painted the back of this step in 1979. I’m pleased to say that when I checked today, my name was still (barely) visible. I”m not sure it will last another year.

At Camp Hess Kramer: They plan to build across Yerba Buena Road additional conference center and staff cabins. They will rework the entrance to bring people in closer to the field with a welcome center, with better hiding of service facilities. They plan to totally redo the old staff cabins (where the camp office and infirmary are now) to provide new multistory facilities and support around the Bruer lawn area. They also appear to want to totally revamp the cabin areas, building new two-story cabins and facilities, which would greatly increase camp capacity.

At Ginding Hilltop Camp, it looks like they want to increase lawn space. They would remove the existing girls cabin area and build a new area, and rework the upper area to move more staff cabins there. It also looks like there would be more nature trails and circulation.

Will these changes occur? Who knows? It is a long-term master plan, and by the time funding gets in place notions may change, or they may determine something better works. What it shows, however, is a commitment to the future, and not keeping the camps static. Keeping any facility static and dated drops participation. So whether I (as an Alumni) like it or not doesn’t matter: what matters is whether future campers and conferences facility users will like it — and I think they will. That’s what is important: keeping the pieces of the past that work, paying tribute to what built the foundation, and then moving forward to make the future successful. The planning shows that this is a goal.

It was just a wonderful relaxing day, surrounded by generally good people. Now to go “friend” some of the folks I hadn’t seen in years…